the mole and the internet

I've just come back from a brief trip to Prague. Where I was talking to people about the extraordinary changes the world of TV is going through / is going to go through. Don't think I convinced them of much. While I was there I saw loads of these fellows. The Mole and Kafka seem to be the twin icons of Prague tourism. Overcome with waves of nostalgia I snapped up one for Arthur and brought it home.

And, since Arthur was naturally curious who this guy is, (and he was trying to avoid going to bed) we typed "Mole Krtek" into YouTube and sat and watched The Mole and The Car (parts 1 and 2.) It's great. Really slow, compared to the usual Cartoon Network fare we love, but sweetly slow. Charming and kind. Makes 60's Czechoslovakia look rather fine. And that 'Konec' at the end brought back Proustian floods of memory. (There's a great profile of Zdenek Miler, the creator of Mole, here)

But I'm really writing this because I want to remember, and I'd like to remind us all, how completely astonishingly great this is. The complete ease that we can sit and watch episodes from an obscure Czech animation. Whenever we want. Using pretty ordinary domestic stuff. It's amazing. Even a couple of years ago we'd have been amazed by this. That it's easy to do. That someone would bother to put it up there. It's extraordinary. I think it's occasionally worth remembering that. Before we take it all for granted.

Comments

Brill. Thanks for posting this. I had totally forgotten about this mole. He was part of a german TV show for kids in the 70s and 80s called "Die Sendung mit der Maus" (also worth looking for on YouTube). A nice trip down memory lane.

Funny. I was just doing the same exercise with my daughter (4yrs) the other night.

It all started with looking up varietals of apples (because she thought it was funny that I called her apple "Granny Smith") and then we looked up some old Mr. Rogers episodes from PBS, we watched some clips of other kids in other countries singing songs in their native language, followed by some Muppet Show episodes, and then some gymnastics clips because she wanted to have a gymnastics birthday party, and then...it was WAY past her bedtime!

I absolutely love having interactive information available to me as a parent, to use as a teaching tool, and a curiosity tool, and a way to connect my children with the greater world.

Not sure that we got The Mole over here in the States, but your point illustrates "the extraordinary changes the world of TV is going through / is going to go through" perfectly. I haven't had a chance to investigate too much, but the new internet-streamed Vice TV (www.vbs.tv) is a case in point.

Funny how quickly insight becomes passe. Then again, that's what keeps the future -- and new insights -- so alluring!

I've always wanted to do a 'kids media' blog: books, TV, movies, games etc. There's hardly anything out there - mostly bible belt nutters rating movies for rectitude. It would be sort of 'speechification.com for kids'. The wealth of Youtube stuff would really brighten it up. Hmm